I talk about things in my life as if they were universal to human nature.

IN THIS MOMENT, I AM EUPHORIC

Atheism has been ruined by sloganeering, pseudointellectualism, and Stalinist devotion to irreproachable idols (Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sagan, Dawkins, etc). It’s not the quiet atheists like me, it’s the loud atheists on reddit who go around using the phrase “imaginary sky daddy” pretending that disbelief automatically makes them intellectual or enlightened.

This picture in particular summarizes a lot of what’s wrong with the movement — some guy named aalewis on reddit fashioned this catchy slogan because he inexplicably enjoys sloganeering. The branding on the picture is quite strong, but not in the way aalewis probably intended. The choice of image is really strong, as is the incidental placement of the commas in this text. I’ll do a line by line analysis.

IN THIS MOMENT, I AM EUPHORIC. This statement is like the second amendment, the comma divides the statement into two clauses — the prefatory clause which serves as background (in this case indicating that he moves through time as divided into each quantal “moment”) and the operative clause which indicates his euphoria through each particular moment. The prefatory clause also can be read as a restrictive clause — that he is euphoric in this moment but not other moments; this interpretation introduces the tension of the absent cause of euphoria in this moment as opposed to other moments.

NOT BECAUSE OF ANY PHONY GOD’S BLESSING. It’s not even a complete sentence. The author probably wanted to merge this fragment with the previous sentence but couldn’t because he used his comma to separate two clauses that didn’t need to be separated (cf. “I am euphoric in this moment, but not because of any phony…”) Here he also narrows the potential cause of his euphoria, but leaving the question unclear as to whether the God is phony, the blessing is phony, or both.

BUT BECAUSE, I AM ENLIGHTENED BY MY INTELLIGENCE. This is also not a complete sentence because the error from the previous sentence snowballed into this one. These grammatical errors have all added up and when the author professes his intelligence it’s really laughable because he can barely string together a couple of phrases in English. The comma was supposed to go before “but” and not after “because”.

Does he even know what euphoria is? Euphoria is something I hear from junkies; heroin junkies are always pining for the rush and euphoria of a hit. A smug complacent grin isn’t really euphoria.

The cataclysm of English grammar is coupled with the image of a fat dweeb committing fashion atrocities.